Open source advocates say IT research bears out their claims that the many flavors of Linux are making steady strides in enterprise deployments.

But ask open source fans to comment on IBM's refusal to indemnify its Linux customers in the face of litigation over copyright disputes in some Linux
code, and the arguments tend to turn to what are called specious claims by SCO Group.

Lindon, Utah-based SCO claims that IBM broke a contract agreement and has pilfered a portion of SCO Group's UNIX System V Code into
Linux versions 2.2, 2.4 and 2.5. IBM disputes the claims and asserts that it has a perpetual UNIX license, which SCO cannot legally revoke. The next
Linux kernel release version, 2.6, is due out later this month.